Exterior sun visors that can optionally be mounted to vehicles are known. Such visors are currently sold in the vehicle accessory market. Increasingly, these are sold as plastic component kits attachable either by dealers or by the ultimate customer. These lightweight visors replace those that were sold perhaps 30-50 years ago as original option accessories with the vehicle.
While lightweight, attractive visors have their desirable features, they also have some inherent problems. First, because the visor is located on the forward portion of the vehicle just above the windshield, it necessarily is subject to extreme wind forces. As a result, if they are improperly constructed or improperly mounted, extreme vibration will occur. This extreme vibration is not only annoying to the vehicle driver, but also may eventually cause damage to both the visor and the vehicle cab, especially at the point of attachment of the visor to the cab.
Since one of the primary purposes of a visor is to shield the driver's eyes from sun, it necessarily follows that a desirable feature is the use of a translucent material on at least a portion of the visor so that it shields the driver's eyes in similar fashion that sun glasses do. This feature particularly involves the use of an additional type of material, different from that of the visor frame. While the shading for the driver's eyes is a nice feature, the use of two or more materials to form the visor composite compounds problems caused by high wind velocity, since the multicomponents sacrifice structural integrity. As a result, wind velocity may often damage, destroy or pull away a shaded visor insert.
One way that the prior art has solved the structural integrity problems is to utilize a visor which has a rigid interior steel frame, the theory being that this steel frame will make it more rigid to withstand the wind velocity to avoid vibration problems. However, this use of such a steel frame drastically increases cost, and the increased weight will exacerbate vibration damage, if and when the unit vibrates.
It can therefore be seen that there is a real and continuing need for the development of a lightweight, economical, easy-to-install visor.
The primary objective of the present invention is to develop the needed lightweight, economical, easy-to-install, and structurally strong visor.
Another objective of the present invention is to prepare a visor insert which, because of its streamlined and contoured shape, as well as its integrated structure, avoids normally attendant vibration problems.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a windshield visor which can use a visor insert, but which avoids potential damage to the insert caused by wind velocity.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a hollow interior visor frame, preferably of a multicomponent hollow monocoque frame. These and other objectives will become apparent from the detailed description of the invention which follows.
A yet further objective is to provide a visor which has no exposed edges, and the mating surface matches the contour of the vehicle in a flush manner.